Trade And Firm Heterogeneity In A Quality-Ladder Model Of Growth

The present paper explores the effect of trade liberalization on the level of productivity as well as the rate of productivity growth in an R&D-based model with heterogeneous firms. The authors introduce new and plausible features that are absent in existing studies. First, technical progress takes the form of continual quality improvement of products over time. Second, firm entry and exit are endogenously determined due to creative destruction of products traded. In this framework, they demonstrate that a lower transport cost or export sunk cost unambiguously reallocates resources from non-exporting industries to R&D as well as exporting industries.